


The Unsung Heroes

by itsallAvengers



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, FUCK, Final Battle, I WATCHED THIS AND IM NOT EVEN IN THE FANDOM BUCK, IT HAD ME S H O O K, Multi, Not A Fix-It, Rogue One - Freeform, Rogue One Spoilers, Sacrifice, Sad Ending, Spoilers, These Guys Are HEROES, War, fucking hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Sacrifice. That was the most heroic thing one could do.Standing up and going to war, staring death in the face- that was what made people brave. Unconditionally, irrationally brave.But sacrifice? Watching everyone you love die, and continuing along the road until you yourself follow in their footsteps, not with fear, but with a smile on your face and a hand holding on to the one you loved?That was what made a hero.This group of people were no different.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I WATCHED. THIS FILM AND IT. FUCKED ME. UP. SO BAD LIKE IT WAS A FUCKING 12A AND THEN I HEAD IN THERE AND (SPOILERS OBV) THEY ALL FUCKIGN DIE HNHHFDSDFGH I JUST HAD TO GET OUT ALL MY FEELS SOMEWHERE FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK.

It was never supposed to end like this.

It was supposed to be triumphant. There was supposed to be a miraculous escape- everyone surviving, despite the odds. People were supposed to find each other, fall in love and finally get their happily ever after. That had been the dream, hadn’t it?

Rebellions were built on hope, after all.

 

And yet, here they all were.

There was a father on some distant planet far away from everything he had fought for so long to destroy; now nothing more than smoke and the stardust he had named his child after. He had looked up at the daughter he would always think he had failed with such love in his dying eyes, and the last thought on his mind had been a half-formed wondering as to whether she knew just how much he loved her.  
She probably didn’t. But then again, it was hard for anyone to quantify an amount that large. He took some happiness from that, before the life had faded from him and the girl holding him had been left with the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders.

 

He had been the first of many. There were even more casualties on Scarif.

The battlefields were littered with bodies. Empty eyes and outstretched hands, reaching out for a friend or a lover. Clusters of the fallen, dying together from one blast, or the singled out ones, lying lifeless with holes in their chests from an opposition who had showed them no mercy.

They had always known it was a suicide mission. It didn’t make it any better when the time had come, though.

Two men in particular stood out amongst the crowds- one staring out at the other, the ghost of a loving gaze on his face, both of them motionless on the floor. The other man’s eyes were empty and a piercing blue, but the smile on his face showed only triumph and pride. If you could have animated them for a second, you just _know_ the first thing they would have done was look at one another and smile. You could sense the bond there- even through death.  
Even _after_ death.

They were both almost stretching out toward the other, their hands half-covered in dirt and rubble from another nearby explosion, stemming from the remains of a ship.

There was nothing left now. Just debris and smoke.

But some people knew the choice that had been made there; the man who had dragged himself through a warzone and risked himself again and again for what he believed in. The man who paid the ultimate price for it.  
The man who had died to keep that hope alive.

He had been smiling, in the end. Reveling in the pride of his work before it had been stripped from him. Perhaps it had been a good way to go- knowing that you personally had been responsible for continuing the fight against evil. Even if it meant you were no longer a part of it.

 

Sometimes, it wasn’t even living, breathing things that let you know of the cost of that day. Sometimes you would stumble across an artificial corpse amongst all the flesh and bone.

It was nothing special to look at, really. Just another Imperial Droid, battered and beaten and falling to pieces. And yet you just… _you knew t_ hat it was not like the rest. You could tell from the fallen storm troopers that surrounded it; from the door it had used it’s final dying electrical pulse to keep shut.

It had been protecting something. Or someone. And it too, had fallen.

The droid could have been many things. Orderly and strict, like many robotic models. Or perhaps bubbly and bright, positively vibrating with excitement for pretty much anything. It could have been sad or angry or loud or muted- it might even have been everything in between, or maybe none of them at all.

Looking at it, however, you simply got the feeling that it had been a sarcastic little shit.  
Right up until the very end.

 

It seemed, throughout the whole island, only two survivors remained. Bruised and beaten and a crumbled mess of limbs on the ground, they were embracing one another so tightly you would have thought they were never going to let go- not through fire or ice or death.

They were just two people on a beach, hugging one another as they watched fire roll toward them on the horizon. And you knew- just watching them and seeing them you _could tell_ , that this was the truth. This was the reality of war. No happy endings and miraculous escapes that defied all laws of nature.

In truth, war was two lovers lying together on the battlefield, years of companionship and love burning fiercely up until their very last moments.  
Or maybe it was a pilot who had been determined to repent for his past mistakes, striding into a warzone with shaking hands and a stuttering voice, but getting the job done anyway, even when it resulted in the loss of his own life.  
It was a rude, sarcastic droid with it’s hands still embedded into the machinery that had allowed his friends to escape and a body punched with sizzling holes from gunfire.  
A father- unable to protect the one thing he had loved unconditionally in the end- living his life under the thumb of an organization he strove to destroy, until finally giving in and accepting his final fate.

 

It was two shaking bodies, clutching one another in their arms as the inferno swept over them, any chance of happiness and love being washed away with the flames.

 

Because war never ended happily. Sometimes, the lucky ones would scrape out of death’s grip by a hair’s breadth, and everyone would suddenly think that being a hero was all about living to tell the tale.

But really? Heroes were the ones who didn’t.

They were the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice. They were the lovers and the fathers and the pilots and the children of war. Too busy fighting for other people’s freedom to worry about their own happiness, and too busy trying to get up off the ground and finish the job to worry about their safety.

Sacrifice. That was the most heroic thing one could do.

Standing up and going to war, staring death in the face- that was what made people brave. Unconditionally, irrationally brave.

But sacrifice? Watching everyone you love die, and continuing along the road until you yourself follow in their footsteps, not with fear, but with a smile on your face and a hand holding on to the one you loved?  
That was what made a hero.

And as the fire and water and rubble rolled over all the heroes, burying them in their graves and sealing their fate forever- they would never know just how many people they had saved that day.  
Not a lot of people would, either. They would fade away, their deaths brushed aside and forgotten to make way for the ones who had fought and survived, rather than battled to the bitter end like they had.

 

The unsung heroes. But never, _ever,_ any less important than the ones everyone would remember.


End file.
